Living Wisely Living Well | With Asha Nayaswami

Imagine the worst thing that could happen to you. Then, still imagining, relax your heart and accept it. If you can bear that visualization, inner freedom will be yours. Why not, then, accept whatever comes? Do you fear death? It can’t be avoided, so why fear it? When it comes, accept it willingly—even gladly! For know this: You, yourself, can never die.

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In inviting others to participate in decisions that are yours to make, the responsibility for the outcome will be yours also. Allow no one’s suggestions to become your excuse for failure. Accept only ideas that resonate with your intuition. Never feel obligated to accept a suggestion merely because you have asked for it.

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What is the best handshake? People sometimes lightly extend two or three fingers, as if preferring not to touch you at all. Others offer their hand limply, as if eager to disengage from you as quickly as possible. Others cling to your hand as if to a lifeline. Still others squeeze your hand forcefully, as if wanting to overpower you. The best handshake is firm, friendly, and tactfully brief—neither too personal nor too impersonal, and leaving both persons the integrity of their own space.

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Notice how quickly the human voice reflects the feelings behind it. An angry person’s voice is tight and rigid. Avaricious people tend to speak harshly, almost in a croak. The voice of someone who is arrogant or contemptuous assumes a slightly nasal quality. The voice of one in whom self-interest predominates develops a certain thickness. If one is indifferent to others, his voice will sound flat and dismissive. These tones and many others show the extent to which the voice is both a sounding board for the speaker’s state of consciousness, and an affirmation of that state. Listen especially for the warm tone of voice in those who love God. Project outward, through your own voice, a note of kindness, good humor, and generosity. Project above all your devotion to God. The more you focus on letting these qualities vibrate through your voice, the more they will deepen in yourself.

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Enlist support for your suggestions, but weigh any disagreement carefully, and listen open-mindedly to counter-suggestions.

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Relax upward, toward the spiritual eye in the forehead. Don’t try to force your concentration to that point. Think of it, rather, as your natural center of being.

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Affirm always, as my Guru taught: “What comes of itself, let it come.” After every disaster, no matter how great, life goes on—if not in this world, then in some other. An attitude of relaxed acceptance toward whatever happens to you will bring you great inner peace and happiness.

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Never reduce people mentally to stereotypes. Everyone is, in his own way, unique. To typecast a person is to impose limitations on him that may paralyze his progress.

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God's nature is childlike in this sense. He loves us without in any way conditioned by our feelings toward Him. He wants nothing from us. His unceasing hope is to welcome us to His infinite home. He is without the slightest ulterior motive. He wants nothing from us but our love. And being complete in Himself, He knows He also has our love though it be misdirected toward an infinity of worldly desires. He knows it, because what all of us seek is His Bliss. 

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God's consciousness is center everywhere, circumference nowhere. In that fact lies the  secret of Divine simplicity. We can most nearly approach simplicity by imagining God as a Person who has nothing to defend and nothing to promote. Who accepts everything as it is. Who rejects nothing, who wants nothing from anyone. Who sees everything in relation to its eternal changeless reality. Who is wholly without self importance. Who never condescends and who waits patiently for us, His creatures, to untangle our psychological kinks and who recognizes that we belong to Him alone. Such is the nature of absolute Bliss.

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